A UNIVERSAL CHURCH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 22.

A UNIVERSAL CHURCH.

DURING the sessions of the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago last autumn, it was said that its outcome might be the establishment of a new church, the platform of which would consist of two planks, namely, "All religions are true," and "All religions are false." The report was regarded as a hoax at the time, but the New York Tribune learns that there is some truth in the report. About three months ago a circular letter was issued by the Rev. Dr. H. W. Thomas, of the People's Church, Chicago; the Rev. Dr. W. S. Crowe, a Universalist clergyman of Newark, N. J.; Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, a prominent Jewish rabbi, and the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, a well-known Unitarian clergyman, calling for a conference to organize a universal church. The conference was held, and as a result of its deliberations a non-Christian, creedless church is to be started in Chicago within a few days. Mr. Jones defines the object of the movement very much as follows:—

Let us step out and onto a platform upon which neither Christianity, Buddhism, Brahmanism, nor agnosticism has any preëmption. On that broad plain of humanity let us build a temple of universal religion, dedicated to the inquiring spirit of progress, to the helpful services of love. Some such church as this already exists. It exists all over the world, where commerce and science, letters and philanthropy, have gone to break down the conceits of creed and the pretensions of sects. We believe that in the so-called liberal forces of America—the Unitarian, Universalist, Reformed Jewish, Ethical Culture, and independent movements—there is found the material for the great prophetic free church of America, democratic, progressive, helpful; a church where heresy hunters will be absolutely impossible, because the spirit which makes heretics will be the central inspiration of its life—the spirit of inquiry, the spirit of individual responsibility in matters of thought.—Literary Digest.